Kingsley Lake (Camp Blanding)

[dsidle61]

Was wondering if anyone on this site has ever been out to Kingsley lake out on camp blanding (Jacksonville, FL).  Heard some good things about this place but I don't know if there are any restrictions with it being on a military base.  Ive been doing as much reading as possible trying to find the answer before coming here and all I got was a yes you can fish it and a no you cant fish it.  So anyone on here with any knowledge please help!

[MCS]

All I know is the Boy and Cub Scout frequently use it. As far as public use I dunno. Here is one I was just at, camp Ekochotee. It is off doctors lake with docks, couple ponds too. Looks like a good spot. Again don't know if public or just scouts have access. I will ask around, Tuesday we have our monthly commitee meeting.

[BASS11]

From what I understand there is no public access

[Pz3]

I won't proclaim to know everything about camp blanding but last I knew it was a military base. Which means you must either know some one in the military who can get you in or you need to be a federal employee. Can't say I've ever been to the base to fish. I have trained there but as long as no signs were posted, I wouldnt see why not?

[MCS]

Talked to the folks at committee. So it is pretty much on lock down, you need to find a friend that can get you on. Our pack is camping there in April. They said we could fish, sites right on lake. I will let you know more.

[Pz3]

PDF File map.

http://myfwc.com/media/2515745/Camp-Blanding-Map.pdf

 

Really If I lived closer I would get you on it. Pretty long drive for me and I can't afford it at the moment.

[MCS]

And here is this site I found. http://www.kingsleylake.org/facts/

[gatrboy53]

yes. one must have military I.D. to access base where ramp is.$5 to launch. deep crystal clear lake (spring fed). plenty of bass but most are small.thats not saying there are no big bass cause there are some monsters in there,but getting thru the dinks is a challenge.This time of yr. alot of fish are up shallow around the docks but for the most part they stay in the 20-30' range on brush piles and deep grass and knowledge of the lake is helpful in finding good schools of fish.

 you can go on the back side of blanding management area and access two lakes over there but access is limited to sunday daylite till noon and monday noon till 6 pm. lowrey and magnolia.both fish similar to kingsley and are alot smaller.fun lakes as long as you dont mind alot of dinks

[MCS]

Well it is cubs scouts so I am sure the boys appreciate any action they can get lol. Thanks for the info sir much appreciated.

[FloridaBassFishingWithGarrett]

Was wondering if anyone on this site has ever been out to Kingsley lake out on camp blanding (Jacksonville, FL).  Heard some good things about this place but I don't know if there are any restrictions with it being on a military base.  Ive been doing as much reading as possible trying to find the answer before coming here and all I got was a yes you can fish it and a no you cant fish it.  So anyone on here with any knowledge please help!

 

My grandparents have a lake place and I go and fish the whole lake myself. There isn't any public access where you can just pull up and put your boat in. But you can go to the bases recreational building where you can buy either a annual membership pass or a visitors pass. 

[lunker82]

my father in law is retired military so he can get on free and he grew up fishing Kingsley so I go with him but I've been 5 times now with him on his boat and it's been rough!  2 lbers at best.  His preferred method is live wild shiners (or so we're told they're wild) but we've never scored big.  Fished shallow and deep as that lake is over 80 feet deep in one spot.  There doesn't seem to be any structure other than the docks with exception of some grass real shallow around banks and the water is super clear and clean.  What's the trick?  We've fished day and night, trolled and drifted.  I hear stories about how big the bass are at Kingsley but they aren't easy to find or catch that's for sure.  I've had better luck pond hopping and bank fishing and caught bigger fish.  Just curious if you use a certain method there, docks, certain depth, etc.  We usually fish the camp Blanding side away from the private docks where the 80 foot hole is but I think fishing around the docks shallower would be better, any thoughts?  It's a beautiful lake and only makes sense that some beasts would be in there but nothing but dinks so far 

[lunker82]

Also, just started fishing it this summer so waiting for that spring season to roll around and see how we do then.  I'm sure I'll be there again with him before then and I'll post if we land anything nice.

[MCS]

Also, just started fishing it this summer so waiting for that spring season to roll around and see how we do then. I'm sure I'll be there again with him before then and I'll post if we land anything nice.

Check your in box bud.

[Thornback]

I spent three days in a 4-bedroom military house on the base with a retired colonel and two other couples. Very nice as we had a boat house and dock to tie my boat up to. Cruising around the lake we saw a camp site on the other side and he told me that was a public park. All we used was plastic worms and we caught dinks like crazy by throwing up in the weeds. One night I caught one bass by trolling. Never caught anything large. When we were loading the boat to leave a guy was getting his boat ready to launch. He said he worked at the camp, he had a large boat, and said all he did was troll at night. He showed me his lures he trolled with. They were 10" long with treble hooks.

[FLbass1999]

Also, just started fishing it this summer so waiting for that spring season to roll around and see how we do then.  I'm sure I'll be there again with him before then and I'll post if we land anything nice.

I fish Kingsley year round. And the two very best ways that I've caught bass on are Dropshot at about 18-25 feet of water, and rigging a Zoom super fluke (Best color is, Watermelon Red Flake) weightless and weedless and skipping under docks and let it sit for 5-10 seconds and pop it 2 or 3 times and then sit and then pop and so on and so on. Biggest bass that I've caught there is 9lbs. My favorite colors for any worms craws creature baits and swimbaits are any kind or green pumpkin red flake or watermelon red flake. Also you can go out at night and rig a blake buzz bait and trow around the docs and weeds and that also catches bass.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Today, the nice thing about Kingsley lake is how pristine it is, and in many ways is still very much like it would have been 100 or 200 years ago or, more, as though man has not damaged it as you find with most of our other lakes in this state. So it is an excellent Florida lake to fish.

 

Here is a bathymetric map of the lake:

 

http://lakewatch.ifas.ufl.edu/RevisedMaps05/ClayMaps/KingsleyClayMap.pdf

 

And I would not exactly describe the bass in that lake as small! Kingsley lake has been producing some record lunkers and they are still in there to this day! Here is a fairly recent article on some of the bass caught there this year.

 

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140313/COLUMNISTS/140319750

 

Recent run of big bass being caught at Kingsley Lake

 

By Gary Simpson Columnist

Published: Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 8:38 p.m.

 

Recently caught big largemouth bass caught in Kingsley Lake in North Central Florida have created a lot of talk among local bass fishermen.  This is the second year in a row that 14+ pound bass have been caught in Kingsley Lake.  In 2013, Len Andrews pulled into a dock on the western bank of the lake and weighed one that went over 14 pounds.   Afterwards he released the fish unharmed. 

 

This year two fish over 14 pounds have been landed, weighed and released.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) accepted the 14 pound 9 ounce bass that Brooks Morrell caught, placing him at the top of the FWC Trophy Catch Program.  Brooks indicates that he has landed nine bass over nine pounds, four over 10 pounds and 2 over 13 pounds all in Kingsley Lake.  He is also aware of 3 others that have been caught that were over 13 pounds.  Over the last 30 years, these probably represent the largest bass caught north of Palatka.

 

Kingsley Lake is a unique lake located partially in Camp Blanding on Highway 16 in western Clay County.  In formation the lake is almost perfectly round with a diameter of about three miles.  It is one of the deepest natural lakes in Florida with verified depths of 65 feet and rumored locations to be near 80 feet.  It is sandy bottomed and located atop Trail Ridge making its water level higher than most of the ground level in Bradford County, which borders the western boundary of Clay County.  

 

Unlike other lakes that are located on Trail Ridge, Kingsley’s water level fluctuates very little.  That noted stability leads many to suggest that much of the lake’s water must be supplied by springs located in its deepest areas.  Due to the lack of fluctuation in the lake’s water level, the shoreline maiden cane cover only potrudes a short distance from the shoreline.  Typically maiden cane moves outward into the lake when the water level recedes; consequently the grass provides very little shoreline cover.

 

Due to the depth of the lake, bass and crappie are difficult to locate during times other than their spawn.  The lake does have an underwater grass line that circles the lake in about 12 to 20 feet, and as the temperature rises in the summer or chills in the winter, fish can always suspend in its deeper waters in order to find a more comfortable range.  

 

The crappies will generally seek the grass line when spawning, and the bass will seek shallower water for their spawn, making both of them more vulnerable at bedding time.  Additionally the lake is semiprivate.  The only public launch into the lake is in Camp Blanding, and the only parties with access to that launch are service and law enforcement personnel or by being accompanied by one of the former.  As a result, the main fish populations are under little pressure.

 

Kingsley Lake is no stranger to large bass.  In 1967 Benny Zoltoski was trolling around Kingsley with two bass in his live well that weighed about 10 pounds each.  However, when he passed what was then Kingsley Beach and headed to the Officer’s Club in Camp Blanding, he had a huge hit which he thought was a hang-up, until the line-water intersection of his line began to move outward, indicating that the hook was moving toward the surface.  Making a long story short, it was not a hang-up but a 16 pound 6 ounce bass that was mounted and hung on the wall of Strickland’s Store for years.

 

The history of record bass in North Central Florida does not all center around Kingsley Lake however.  Buddy Wright, a current resident of Keystone Heights, has always fished from a 12 foot jon boat and never fished in a bass tournament; but, in April of 1987 he was having a good day on the St. Johns River, south of Palatka, with a couple of nice catches under his belt that weighed over five pounds each.  His last catch of the day – caught on a Bill Norman Weed Walker lure – was a monster that weighed in at 18 pounds and 13 ounces.  Unfortunately the fish lost a lot of roe before its first weigh in on a certified accurate scale.  The fish was subsequently frozen and thawed out for another certified weight; however, the FWC would not recognize the fish because a wildlife officer did not get to his home until two weeks after notification and after the fish was frozen, thus depriving Buddy of a Florida State Record. 

 

All was not lost though, because the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) did recognize Buddy’s catch as a world record for a 16-pound line weight catch, and Buddy has that plaque on his wall beside the replica.

 

Believe it or not the largest bass landed in Bradford, Clay and/or Union Counties according to this research and in recent history came from Brooklyn Lake in Keystone.  In 1966 “Forest and Stream Magazine,” which later became “Field and Stream Magazine” published an article about an 18 pound 2 ounce bass that Hugh Paul caught on Brooklyn Lake.

 

Though there have been larger record size bass caught, the gold standard for record largemouth bass is still the 1932 George Perry Bass that weighed 22 pounds 4 ounces with a 32.5 length and 28.5 girth.  Manabu Kurita caught a 22 pounds 4.97 ounce bass in Japan on July 2, 2009.  Despite bettering the Perry bass by almost an ounce, IGFA rules consider the catch a tie with the Perry bass.  In 2006 Mac Weakley foul hooked and landed a 25 pound and .01 ounce bass in a California Lake that was photographed, weighed and released.

 

Paul Nosca has done a significant amount of research on the “25 largest bass ever caught,” and he makes several good and one especially good observation about record largemouth bass.  Many of the larger Florida bass have been very long and comparatively light in weight.  Bill Whipple caught what is considered to be the world record longest bass in 2002 on Lake Toho.  The bass was 33 inches in length but weighed only 14 pounds and 6 ounces.  Certainly bass caught in the spawn and full of roe would have a significant weight advantage over fish caught while not spawning.

 

Paul Nosca’s research on the largest 25 bass ever caught can be found online under his name.